Berlin – Bavaria Considers Use Of Mein Kampf In School Curriculum

Berlin – The Bavarian parliament was debating Thursday whether an annotated version of Adolf Hitler’s opus Mein Kampf should be authorized for educational use in schools and other establishments.

The 2,000-page version of the text, which climbed to the top spot on Der Spiegel’s nonfiction bestseller list this month, includes 3,700 annotations that attempt to provide context to Hitler’s anti-Semitic rhetoric and lay bare his Nazi propaganda.

It was first released in January after the copyright handed over to a Bavarian ministry by the Allies after World War II expired. The ministry had refrained from republishing the text for seven decades for fear of stoking anti-Semitism.

Opposition parties in Bavaria, including the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Voters, are pushing for the book’s use in schools to educate young people about the country’s history.

A subdivision of Bavaria’s Education Ministry is drafting a manual on how the book could be integrated into the curriculum.

Jewish community leaders, including Charlotte Knobloch, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, have come out in opposition to using the text in schools, arguing that it contains hate speech.

The annotated version made its debut on German bestseller lists in January and climbed to the top spot on Der Spiegel’s nonfiction ranking two weeks ago. It has now sold 55,000 copies.‎